The Three Classic Books on Stoic Philosophy

The most important ancient texts on Stoicism

Let these doctrines, if that is what they are, be enough for you. As for your thirst for books, be done with it, so that you may not die with complaints on your lips, but with a truly cheerful mind and grateful to the gods with all your heart. — Meditations, 2.3

The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, like other Stoics, believed that it was more important to apply philosophy in practice, throughout our daily lives, than simply to read about it in books. However, he also owned a copy of the Discourses of Epictetus, gifted to him by his Stoic mentor Junius Rusticus, which he quotes repeatedly and had clearly studied very closely indeed.

The philosopher Seneca explains the Stoic attitude toward reading as being more about quality than quantity:

Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends. And the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance with no single author, but visit them all in a hasty and hurried manner. — Letters to Lucilius, 2